Book Review: Just Add Watercolor by Helen Birch

I love trying out new mediums or techniques with my art.  When I saw "Just Add Watercolor" by Helen Birch, I decided that learning more about watercolor techniques would be a good thing.

This book has over 80 examples of different modern watercolor techniques used.  One page is devoted to the watercolor painting with the opposite page describing the approach to how the painting was made.  It goes into detail the different ways to add paint, which brushes to use, color selection, what type of paper to use, layering techniques, and materials used.

It was amazing to me looking through the book and seeing the different ways that watercolor paintings can look.  I liked seeing the different styles of the individual artists.

I would recommend this book to people interested in trying out different techniques when watercolor painting.  If you are used to using the wet on wet technique, this book will show you options of applying color using the wet on dry technique.  Or starting with an ink drawing first and applying your colors on top (as shown above with the leaves).  This book will give you new ways to approach your watercolor painting.

I was happy to receive a free copy of this book through Blogging for Books.  Learning about different ways to create art is exciting for me.  I have to admit, I'm not very good at watercolor painting yet, but it was fun to learn more and see visuals to give me ideas on different projects I would like to work on.

I created two small paintings.  I didn't have any watercolor paper, so I used canvas for my tree painting and regular multi-use paper for the flower painting.  I'm definitely a novice, but it was fun!